Search engine outfit Google is facing a lawsuit over the microphone problems in the original Pixel.

In a class action complaint filed this week, plaintiffs allege that the microphones in their Pixel and Pixel XL phones were defective from the start and that Google knowingly sold faulty mobiles amid widespread complaints immediately after launch.The lawsuit adds that some warranty replacement phones continued to have problems.

Neither of the named plaintiffs in the lawsuit had their phones repaired within Google’s standard warranty period.

Google acknowledged the Pixel phones’ microphone problems in March 2017. An employee on Google’s support forums attributed the problems to “a hairline crack in the solder connection on the audio codec” and said the problem could come and go depending on the temperature of the phone or the way it’s being held. “This is especially frustrating as a user because, just when you think you’ve got it fixed, the problem randomly comes back”, the Google employee wrote. This might explain why one of the plaintiffs didn’t seek a repair until more than a year after buying the phone.

The Pixel phones had a few hardware defects even if they received praise for their excellent cameras and unadulterated Android software. Pixel 2 and XL2 users have complained of burn-in and black image smudging with the phones’ OLED displays, along with muted microphone problems.

Girard Gibbs LLP, the same law firm that’s suing Google over the original Pixel, is looking into a class action suit over the second-generation model as well.

In response to Pixel 2 complaints, Google extended customers’ standard warranties to two years but this does not apply to original Pixel owners.

After many quarters of financial decay and many rumors, Google has announced that it plans to acquire HTC employees and some of the IP licensing rights.

So this is not the acquisition that many had in mind - it is something a bit different. This cooperation is definitely a reason for concern for at least some phone manufacturers. Google did a good job with its last generation Pixel phones and it is expected that the follow up phone will continue the popularity of the original one.

Google and HTC announced that they reached a deal where HTC will get $1.1 billion in cash and in return HTC will give up a certain number of employees, many of which are already working on development of the Pixel phones. These chaps will join Google as per agreement and separately Google will receive a non-exclusive license for HTC intellectual property (IP).

HTC will continue to make, brand and sell its own phones, this won’t change, at least not for now. HTC was happy with its last U11 phone and its performance and the money it receives from Google will definitely help the financially shaky entity.

Cher Wang, Chairwoman and CEO of HTC said: "As a pioneer of the smartphone market, we are very proud of our history of innovation. Our unmatched smartphone value chain, including our IP portfolio, and world-class talent and system integration capabilities, have supported Google in bolstering the Android market. This agreement is a brilliant next step in our longstanding partnership, enabling Google to supercharge their hardware business while ensuring continued innovation within our HTC smartphone and VIVE virtual reality businesses. We believe HTC is well positioned to maintain our rich legacy of innovation and realize the potential of a new generation of connected products and services.”

Rick Osterloh, Senior Vice President of Hardware at Google, said: “HTC has been a longtime partner of Google and has created some of the most beautiful, premium devices on the market. We're excited and can't wait to welcome members of the HTC team who will be joining Google to fuel further innovation and future product development in consumer hardware.”

The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions, and is expected to close by early 2018. One can imagine that Taiwan won’t have anything against the deal and the US based company clearly benefits from the deal.

One thing is certain, the Pixel 3 or the one scheduled for early Q4 2018 shipping date, is most likely going to come from labor acquired by this transaction, well HTC.

Google has head hunted Apple’s chip man to come up with future versions of Google's Pixel phone.

Manu Gulati is an Apple micro-architect who worked on the company's chip development for nearly eight years. Apple began using its own chips in 2010, starting with the introduction of the iPad in 2010, which was powered by the company's A4 chip.

Google relied on a chip designed and manufactured by Qualcomm when it introduced its first Pixel phones.

However, this same chip is being used by a number of other Android phone manufacturers, including HTC, LG, Lenovo and Asus, which means the phones all offer similar performance specs. This makes it hard for companies to differentiate their devices from one another.

The Tame Apple Press has implied that Google will be copying Apple and coming out with its own chip.

But Google moving away from Qualcomm for its Pixel would be unlikely. The Pixel is not really designed as a phone to rival the iPhone or Galaxy, but as a reference for other manufacturers. Releasing it with a new chip that they could not use would be pointless.

Messing around with chips is expensive and Apple spent a fortune creating its own chip based around ARM gear. Given its spat with Qualcomm, Apple moving to its own chip is useful, but Google needs to play to the widest possible audience for its reference phones.

Google has admitted that a "small number" of its Pixel phones have shipped with borked microphones which will need to be returned so they can be replaced.

Google claims the issue is present on less than a percent of devices and it will replace defective phones. The problem cannot be that bad because few people have noticed it.

Google says the primary cause for Pixels having microphone issues is a “hairline crack in the solder connection on the audio codec,” which causes all three of the device’s mics to go out at once.

The search engine outfit Google says it’s been “taking additional steps to reinforce the connection” since January and that phones built or refurbished since then should be fine.

Those who bought it through a third party, this may mean going without a phone until you get the replacement in; but customers who bought directly from Google can get a new device shipped out to them before they return their existing one..

The Pixel came out in October, but Google is still struggling to keep it in stock. Ironically the product shortages may have meant more people ended up with fixed Pixels.

Google’s senior vice president for hardware Rick Osterloh has hinted that the Pixel laptop will be going the way of Ned Stark from the Game of Thrones.

Only two flavours of the Pixel laptop, which is Google’s top-of-the-range Chromebook, have ever been released. Now Osterloh said that the brand will no longer be applied to laptops.

Osterloh said that the company had no plans to do a new laptop right now. He added that the versions that are already out in the market have totally sold out and that there are no plans to make any more of those, either.

Osterloh said. “Google hasn’t backed away from laptops. We have the number two market share in the US and UK — but we have no plans for Google-branded laptops.”

To be fair, the Pixel was always meant to be Google’s example of what a premium Chromebook could look like and were never meant to sell in high numbers. Only an Apple fanboy would be dumb enough to spend as much as $1,299 for a laptop that only let you run the Chrome browser.

It was the first Chromebook to feature a touch screen and showed that Google could build vertically integrated devices that could compete with the likes of Apple if it put its mind to it.

The Pixel 2, however, was discounted without a replacement last August. In addition to using the Pixel brand for its new phone, Google is also still selling the Pixel C tablet.

There is one generally incorrect conception that Wi-Fi is fast enough and that Wi-Fi is simply fast enough. The reality is that Fudzilla managed to prove that a Google Pixel phone powered by Snapdragon 821 SoC and Qualcomm Wi-Fi scores almost twice the performance of the Galaxy S7 phone.

Out testing included a Netgear Nighthawk X4S R 7800 router powered by a Qualcomm dual-core IPQ8065 Internet Processor clocked at 1.7 GHz on the infrastructure side and a PC acting as a server.

The router comes with 512 MB RAM and 128 MB flash. On the wireless side, it includes QCA9984 4x4 MU-MIMO 802.11ac radio and four Skyworks SE2623L 2.4 GHz power amp on the 2.4 GHz end and QCA9984 4x4 MU-MIMO 802.11ac radio and four RFMD RFPA5542 5 GHz PA power module for 5GHz support.

Netgear Nighthawk 4XS supports 4x4 MIMO and a technology known as SON (Self Organizing Network) and currently sells just below $200 in the US, €189 in German or £169.99 in the UK. Fudzilla already covered SON in details last summer and we plan to spend some more time with this amazing technology. SON definitely speeds up Wi-Fi internet in your home.

The Google Pixel phone supports 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi with a top connection speed of 866 Mbps. Most phones support up to 433 Mbps as a Wi-Fi speed which throttle’s the Wi-Fi network’s performance. Google realizes the importance of fast internet and has managed to implement 2x2 antennas in the Pixel phone. The Nexus 5S was the first phone to feature 2x2 on the Wi-Fi side and it also supports MU-MIMO.

A 1x1 enabled mobile phone supports a transmit and a receive stream. A 2x2 device supports two streams in each direction making it potentially twice as fast. Only top-of-the-range phones have 2x2 as it requires two Wi-Fi antennas. In some cases, you can use the same antenna for 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi and LTE. This saves you some valuable space inside a smartphone. Antenna design in the phone for the 4G / LTE and Wi-Fi requires space which is at a premium in a smartphone.

Besides the 2x2 approach, using MU-MIMO will provide some additional speed up for your Wi-Fi. With MU-MIMO enables transmit and receive data from multiple Wi-Fi devices at once. Non MU-MIMO or SU-MIMO does not let users stream data at the same time. Only one user can send and receive, while everyone else is held in a queue.

First phones we tested the router setup using a Google Pixel with a Snapdragon 821 SoC and we followed this up by testing the popular Samsung Galaxy S7 powered by the Exynos 8890 SoC. Our initial focus was only on Wi-Fi peak performance and the MU-MIMO in best signal conditions. More testes with multiple phones in crowded scenarios are coming later.

We had to emulate traffic to get the maximum possible throughput. In the testing, we were sending data from the simulated server via a router to the phone. Imagine our surprise when we saw that Pixel phone scored 644 Mbps while Samsung Galaxy S7 powered by Exynos 8890 SoC scores 329 Mbps. Of course, we tried to do a rematch multiple times until we realized that these scores are conclusive. The slowest we’ve seen with Samsung S7 8890 Exynos phone was the 316 Mbps. It is interesting that although the phone specifications support 2x2, it only offers 1x1 speed. We will continue to explore why this is the case.

As mentioned before, since we were measuring peak performance as a starting point, the phones were only one meter from the router, which would indicate near perfect conditions. Still, the test room was polluted by at least 10 other Wi-Fi networks from the neighborhood. We tested in a real-life condition and not in a Wi-Fi isolated room to get as accurate date as possible. The plan is to do some additional testing at the distance, but from the first results, the same difference applies even at the larger distance.

As expected, the Wi-Fi signal speed drops with distance or with each wall. Since the testing has been conducted in Vienna Austria, we are talking about concrete or brick walls. This is one of the worst-case scenario for any Wi-Fi signal as the steel inside of the walls acts as a Faraday cage. It is important to notice that the signal drop is consistent on both device. We will tell you more about it some other time.

During testing, the Pixel phone peaked to 695 Mbps. This is the highest Wi-Fi performance that we've ever seen on a phone. The 644 Mbps was the number that we got repeatedly and it is almost twice as fast as the score we got on the Galaxy S7.

Conclusion

We can draw a few easy conclusions. The combo on a Netgear router powered on Snapdragon on the router and Google Pixel phone with Snapdragon 821 SoC and Qualcomm’s Wi-Fi chip inside will get you to incredible Wi-Fi speeds.

The Pixel gets almost twice the performance as compared to the acclaimed Samsung Galaxy S7 phone, and significantly higher performance as compared to the iPhone 7, Huawei and a few other phones. This is not application processor dependant, as we proved with a few phones with different non Qualcomm SoCs. We will leave this subject for another time too, as we are conducting some additional testing.

With many countries and providers offering 500 or 1000 Mbps (1 Gbps) speeds, you are able to download data almost two times faster with a Pixel phone. Netflix movie download is a good example, it downloads close to two times faster on a Pixel phone via Wi-Fi. Most people we know do use Wi-Fi whenever they are in their homes or office because of the data caps.

Most fixed line Internet providers in the world don’t have any data caps any more but most mobile carriers do imply a limitation to a data consumption.

Therefore, Fudzilla wants to point out the importance of the quality and performance of your Wi-Fi. Most people use Wi-Fi almost as much as electricity. It becomes very important as most apps on your phone won’t do anything without internet connection. One of the most important cases where MU-MIMO comes to play are the crowded environments. The phone supporting MU-MIMO has a better chance of getting much faster internet than any other phone competing for the same shared bandwidth speed.

We will touch another elephant in the room confirming that your ISP (Internet Service Provider) router is a horrible choice compared to high-end routers from Netgear, Linksys and the like. High end routers can easily double performance compared to the router you get complementary (for free) from your ISP.

Free is not always the best for you, especially when it comes to Wi-Fi routers and MU-MIMO Multi user MIMO Wi-Fi performance.

This year we will see the end of the bezel, or at least phones with very slim ones.

It was a prediction we thought about last year but now the year is upon us we are starting to see rumoured phones that are close to the edge.

Xiaomi seemed to be the ground breaker for this new trend delivering the Mi Mix in 2016 and now everyone is following.

Why do we care? Smaller bezels make the screens just look cooler and more futuristic. They look less like an early iPhone which is more of a plus. You also get a bigger screen which you can use with one hand which means your left is free to smash your workmates iPhone if they are stupid enough to leave it on the desk.

The Samsung Galaxy S8 and the next iPhone will both have tiny bezels. In fact the iPhone 8 will probably get rid of its physical home button and the giant bottom bezel. LG has confirmed something similar its next flagship the LG G6.

The G6 will be particularly sexy with its 5.7-inch display with a unique 18:9 aspect ratio. To do that LG should continue its moves to reduce bezel sizes.

In fact the only thing that stands against a bezeless future is the fact that Google does not seem to be on board with its new Pixel which has a bezel the size of Kansas.

Netflix is now available for Google’s Daydream VR platform. The app supports HBM and Hulu too.

Netflix didn’t make any splashy announcement as Daydream is joining a bushel of VR enabled platforms. It's worth pointing out that Gear VR is probably the most successful and Netflix for Daydream looks almost identical to the one on Gear VR.

The Daydream personal cinema group of apps includes YouTube, Hulu, Google Play Movies and TV, HBO now, Jaunt and now Netflix and we should point out that brining your phone so close to your eyes will make some pixels maybe too visible.

Daydream is currently only available on a very few phones that include Pixel and Pixel XL, Moto Z, Moto Z Droid and Mote Z Force Droid. That is not an exceptional list but we are sure that there will be more phones supporting the platform.

Daydream is currently available in only five markets, one of them being the US. Verizon and Best Buy are selling it for $79 USD in the USA, Bell, Rogers, Telus, Best Buy are selling it for $99 (CAD) in Canada.

Customers in Australia can get Daydream from Telstra, JB Hi-Fi for $119 (AUD) while customers in the United Kingdom can purchase Daydream from EE and Carphone Warehouse for £69 (GBP).

The only non-English country to get D aydream at launch is German and Google is offering Daydream at Deutsche Telekom shows and online for €69 (EUR).

Beancounters at Morgan Stanley have added up some numbers and divided by their shoe size and worked out that 5-6 million of Pixel and Pixel XL mobiles will be sold this year.

This will make Google about $3.8 billion in revenue. The numbers men also predict that the Pixel will sell three million units in the final three months of 2016, making a cool $2 billion of revenue. Of course the Tame Apple Press is doing its best to say that these figures are nothing like what their favourite toy maker makes with its iPhone.

Morgan Stanley admits the Pixel will be half as profitable for Google as the iPhone is to Apple, because it has better and more expensive materials.It is a terrible thing when a tech company suffers because it puts in better quality parts. The Pixel phone will generate a 22 per cent -25 per cent gross profit margin,varying according to the model. The iPhone 7's gross margin is at around 41 per cent.

Google makes its mone from what Morgan Stanley's analysts refer to as "Android user monetisation."

People spend three times more money on iOS shopping apps than they do Android ones, but some of the Pixel's features will help close this gap, Morgan Stanley said.

Features unique to the Pixel, such as the Google Assistant, the Pixel camera, and Daydream (Google's virtual reality headset, which works with the Pixel), plus the smartphone's deeper app integration, increased prominence of Android Pay, and improved computing power (compared to other Android devices), will ultimately lead to users spending more money on Android, according to the research note.

Morgan Stanley's analysts predict that these features could see the Pixel driving higher mobile search monetization for Google as advertisers will spend more to reach the consumers who spend the most on their mobiles.